Undermining Iraqi Security by Giving in to Tehran’s Demands
Fox News, October 7, 2008
Alireza Jafarzadeh (Foreign Affairs Analyst)
With an eye to the crucial
provincial elections to be held in Iraq in the coming
months, and the end of the UN mandate of US-led Multi
National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), the ayatollahs’ terror campaign
is growing increasingly vicious. The goal is to keep the
Iraqi government divided and weak, and hence vulnerable to
Tehran’s machinations.
If held free of interference by Iran and its Iraqi proxies,
those elections could be a milestone toward establishing a
democratic, non-sectarian nationalist government in Iraq —
an option Tehran will go very far to remove.
Iran’s strategy, adopted by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in
tandem with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, seeks a
weak, sectarian government by the Shiite majority,
susceptible to Tehran’s pressure and influence and inclined
to act at Tehran’s behest.
The Iranian regime is working overtime to sabotage the vote
by assassinating key Iraqi officials and politicians,
particularly from the nationalist, non-sectarian block.
Meanwhile, Tehran is pursuing the same goal by exerting
tremendous pressure on the Iraqi government, in a bid to
disrupt the ongoing security negotiations between Baghdad
and Washington, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker referred to the
strategy in his familiar diplo-speak in an interview with
the Associated Press. Citing Tehran’s “fundamental desire to
oppose the development of a fully secure and stable Iraq,”
Ambassador Crocker said, “I think they would like to keep
Iraq off balance as a way of being able to control events
here to the satisfaction of Tehran.”
A US military spokesman told CNN that Iraqi Shiite fighters
who were trained in Iran to operate in assassination squads
are starting to return to Iraq and “planning assassinations
of key [Iraqi] government and security officials, as well as
coalition forces.”
Tehran’s war on Iraqi political reconciliation includes a
well organized assassination campaign against rising
nationalist politicians, regardless of their religious and
ethnic background, and leaders of the Sons of Iraq and
Awakening Councils, whose cooperation in ridding Iraq of
terrorist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Qods Force
has been decisive in improving security.
In an interview with The Los Angeles Times last week,
Ambassador Crocker warned that while Iran is “pushing very
hard to derail ongoing security talks,” it is also
“tightening its ties to Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq and
co-opting them from anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr.” He said
that “Iran has a history of using members of political or
other opposition groups in other countries to its
advantage.”
Tehran’s officials are hardly trying to hide their distain
for notions like non-interference in Iraq’s internal
affairs. In a statement viewed by The Los Angeles Times as
“appearing to be speaking on behalf of Iraqis,” Iran’s
ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi told The Times that
“the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government look at the
[security] agreement as being imposed on them.”
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, formerly the mullahs’
president, weighed in last Friday during a sermon in Tehran:
“The Americans persistently want to impose the agreement,
which surely does not support the interests of Iraq and is
harmful to the future of Iraq.”
In early September, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali
Larijani, told a group of Iraqi journalists that a security
deal with the U.S. would humiliate Iraq. This and similar
statements have irked some Iraqi officials, such as Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who criticized Tehran for trying to
interfere in the negotiations. “Those who objected to the
agreement right from the start were Hezbollah and the Mahdi
Army and some officials in the Islamic Republic,” he told Al
Hurra TV.
Meanwhile, the behind-the-scenes pressure by Iran has also
intensified, according to an Iraqi official quoted by The
Wall Street Journal. The London Daily Telegraph reports that
Iraq’s prime minister “Nouri al-Maliki replaced professional
diplomats on the negotiating team with members of his
private office in August, a development that has pro-Iranian
politicians at the heart of the negotiations.” Since then,
relying on its Trojan Horses, Tehran has in effect paralyzed
the talks.
Along the way, the ayatollahs’ regime has exacted strategic
concessions from the United States by again dangling the
promise of its cooperation - or less opposition – over the
security agreement in exchange for dismantling the forces of
the main Iranian opposition located in Iraq. Tehran has been
relentlessly pressing the Maliki government to insist, on
the pretext of Iraqi national sovereignty, that US-led MNF-I
hand-over protection of Camp Ashraf to Iraqi security
forces.
Camp Ashraf is the residence of Iran’s main opposition, the
People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), and their families in
Iraq. The PMOI members have been recognized as “Protected
Persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention by the United
States, the MNF-I, and the International Committee of the
Red Cross. Obligated by the “Protected Persons” status, US
forces have been providing their security.
In Iran, the PMOI-led resistance poses a strategic threat to
the viability of the ayatollahs’ regime. In Iraq, Camp
Ashraf’s location and influence has been a key factor in the
Iraqi campaign to thwart Tehran’s nefarious designs, Middle
East experts believe. Hence, Camp Ashraf has preoccupied the
mullahs, especially since 2003. No surprise there.
What is astonishing is that the American side of the
negotiations keeps falling for the “Iraqi sovereignty” line.
On September 9, The Washington Times quoted a White House
official as saying, “The United States is consulting with
the Iraqi government concerning the ongoing transfer of
security responsibility to Iraq.” This has emboldened
Tehran, which reads the American acceptance of the demand as
a sign of weakness, and in turn the mullahs have increased
their pressure on Iraq’s government and campaign of terror
against Iraq’s people.
Not to mention that turning Ashraf over to Iraqi security
forces precipitates a humanitarian crisis. Talk about
putting the fox (Tehran) in charge of the hen house!
When will Washington learn the bitter lesson that appeasing
the mullahs at the expense of the Iranian resistance always
backfires? Many members of U.S. Congress, Republicans and
Democrats, believe that especially at this crucial juncture,
just months before a decisive election in Iraq, the United
States is, by its own hands, depriving itself and
nationalist Iraqis of a major ally in the campaign for a
democratic, secure, and non-sectarian Iraq free of Iran’s
nefarious influence.
International Humanitarian Law as well as obvious strategic
imperatives behoove the United States to remain in charge of
Camp Ashraf’s protection as long U.S. forces are in Iraq.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
